Capital opening may be in '06

Large gas line came as surprise to project designer.

Large gas line came as surprise to project designer.

December 08, 2005|JEFF PARROTT Tribune Staff Writer

MISHAWAKA -- In May, state officials said Capital Avenue/Indiana 331's newly built leg from McKinley Highway to Jefferson Boulevard would open in late July or early August. Nope. In September, they claimed it would open in mid-November. Wrong again. Now the Indiana Department of Transportation says the road will open "around the first of the year," barring any heavy snowstorms, agency spokesman Will Wingfield said. For months the road has been finished, its "ROAD CLOSED" barricades taunting those who commute each day into South Bend and Mishawaka from points north, such as Granger. But before opening it, InDOT must widen and realign the existing Capital south of Jefferson because the two sections don't line up. So what's causing the delays? In May, project designer DLZ Indiana discovered a 16-inch-diameter high-pressure gas line running closely along the east side of Capital Avenue, south of Jefferson, according to internal InDOT documents obtained by The Tribune through Indiana's Open Records Law. Because DLZ already had known the line ran along the east side of the newly built road north of Jefferson, the company assumed it continued straight south of Jefferson and ran several hundred feet east of Capital, DLZ highway department manager Brian Arterbery wrote in a memo to InDOT officials. But instead, the gas line turned west at Jefferson before heading south along Capital south of Jefferson. The gas line stood in the way of a planned 20-foot-wide drainage culvert that will carry Willow Creek underneath Capital, about 50 yards south of Jefferson. The culvert has been modified to fit without having to move the gas line, but for a while the discovery brought the roadwork south of Jefferson to a standstill, according to the documents. Who to blame? "We don't know exactly where the miscommunication was, but it was somewhere between the consultant and the utility," Wingfield said. "It's hard to assign blame to one person in this situation." Several firms have been hired for the project, including architectural engineering firms Paul I. Cripe Inc. of Indianapolis, DLZ Indiana and contractor Reith Riley Construction. It was up to the project designer, DLZ, to identify any existing utility lines, said Pat Taylor, a Cripe spokesman. DLZ is not sure whether to blame itself or Northern Indiana Public Service Co., owner of the gas line, said Gary Fisk, DLZ's director of transportation. Fisk said DLZ started asking NIPSCO to identify its utilities at the site in 1994. He said he did not know whether NIPSCO ever provided maps or other documentation on the gas line's location. And he doesn't care to find out. "It's just water under the culvert now," Fisk said. But NIPSCO spokesman Larry Graham said the utility did inform DLZ of the gas main's location. Initial project plans that DLZ gave NIPSCO included part of the main, but not the part that conflicted with the planned culvert, Graham said. So NIPSCO marked up the drawings to add the part of the main that was missing and returned them to DLZ, Graham said. Neighbor angry Elder Road resident Fred Gygi can't wait for the new road to open, but not because he thinks it's a great project. Among other things, he is annoyed that the project took land away from the nearby Willow Creek United Methodist Church, of which he is a member. But while drivers wait for the barricades to come down, they are taking Currant or Elder roads to Jefferson. "I've lived here for 76 years and I've seen more cars in the last year than I've seen in the 76 years before that," Gygi said bitterly. "They don't go 5 mph either, they come through there better than 40, and there's no sidewalks, so people are taking their lives into their own hands."Staff writer Jeff Parrott: jparrott@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6320